Michigan

We just returned from 6 days in Michigan with Pete's brother and his sweet family. It was a great trip. I wasn't sure how it was going to go b/c I knew Pete and his brother were planning to go fishing and camping for part of the time and the sleeping arrangements for the kids were questionable to say the least. However, Summer and Andy came up with a great plan for sleeping, which gave me so much more peace of mind. The kids were up a little earlier than they are at home, but overall napped and slept well all week! :)
As I mentioned, it was such a fun week! It included:
~trips to 2 different parks
~picnic lunch with Lake Michigan in the background
~games of cornhole
~a walk to the bakery
~a trip to a great children's museum
~Jon's first camping experience (which included fishing and camping with his cousin Caedmon)
~a girls' day for Summer and I
~camping and fishing for Pete and Andy
~a game of Settlers of Cattan, in which Summer won!! :)--I consider any game in which the boys are stymied a victory!
~watching 3 movies with Summer--2 disappointing ones and 1 good one
~great conversations
~getting to worship at Andy and Summer's church for the first time!
and much more! But enough talk, here's a few pictures...more will be posted on my facebook if you want to check them out, I'll post a link. You can just click here.

trip to Mansfield/Ashland

Two posts in one day??? I know, it's crazy! However, we're getting ready to go to Michigan and I figured I needed to catch up on the last trip first. :)

A few weeks ago, we went up to Pete's parents' house and spent the weekend. While we were there, Pete went turkey hunting with his dad. They had a blast and Pete got his gobbler on the second day. :) His dad got a picture, I'll have to get it sent to me so that I can post it. Seeing is believing, right? ;)

While there, the boys got to spend time with their grandparents, as well as my grandparents in Ashland. Also, we timed it so that we got to go to Kallie Foote's first birthday party. Here's a couple of pics for our time that weekend:


Shannon and I

Lucas and Kallie Foote

my budding pianists?

Grandma reading to Sam

catch up?!?

I have been so bad about blogging lately. The few times that I've gotten on here lately, all I've done is upload pics or videos. I'm sorry! Life has been busy and I've been trying to be on this contraption less and spend more time doing more important things--spending quality time with the fam, reading, journalling, praying, exercising, etc. But I do intend to be more consistent about updating this. Really, I do! :)
First, just a couple of general updates:

**we LOVE our church. The faithful preaching of God's Word, the generous hearts and fellowship within the body of believers is so encouraging and refreshing. We're excited about joining together with them and reaching out to our community and showing them Christ's love.

**we're thankful for Pete's job that God has provided. However, things there have been going downhill. He came to work at Dew right as the company's management changed and due to poor management, things haven't gone well. Pete was willing to move to a different position--Scheduling/production manager--and still do a little sales on the side, when the need arose. And it has been a difficult position. He sees many problems, and even some possible solutions, but isn't in a position to do much about them. Please pray for him and our future. There's a good chance that the company may be going under soon. We trust that God has brought us here and He will continue to provide for us and lead us. He is always faithful--it's who He is, He cannot not be faithful.

**we have two of the most fun boys in the whole world. They crack us up on a regular basis. It has been so fun to see them play together more and more. The challenging part is trying to teach them how to handle conflict with each other. I try to remember when they struggle with this concept that there are many adults that don't handle conflict with others well, so I need to be gracious and patient with my 1 and 3 year olds! ;) I think I'll try to have a post about each of the boys soon to highlight what they're up to these days. For my own memory keeping sake and for those of you who don't get to enjoy them as often as you'd like! :)

This is getting long, so I'll just close with a couple of fun pics.
Enjoy! :)

our little biker

Jon riding his bike